Misplaced Pages

Malpelo plate

Article snapshot taken from[REDACTED] with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
(Redirected from Malpelo Plate) A small tectonic plate off the coast west of Ecuador and Colombia
Malpelo plate
The Malpelo plateMalpelo plate in purple, Coiba plate in dark red
PTF in red, CTF in green
TypeMicro
Coordinates03°14′N 81°14′W / 3.233°N 81.233°W / 3.233; -81.233
MovementEast
FeaturesBordering:
Coiba plate (north)
North Andes plate (east)
Nazca plate (south)
Cocos plate (west)
Basins:
Chocó Offshore Basin
Colombian Deep Pacific Basin
Relative to the African plate

The Malpelo plate is a small tectonic plate (microplate) located off the coasts west of Ecuador and Colombia. It is the 57th plate to be identified. It is named after Malpelo Island, the only emerged part of the plate. It is bounded on the west by the Cocos plate, on the south by the Nazca plate, on the east by the North Andes Plate, and on the north by the Coiba plate, separated by the Coiba transform fault (CTF). This microplate was previously assumed to be part of the Nazca plate. The Malpelo plate borders three major faults of Pacific Colombia, the north to south striking Bahía Solano Fault in the north and the Naya-Micay and Remolino-El Charco Faults in the south.

Description

The Malpelo plate was hypothesised in 2013 and identified by a non-closure of the Nazca–Cocos–Pacific plate motion circuit, in a paper published in 2017. The formation of the oceanic crust of the plate has been estimated to be since the Middle Miocene (14.7 Ma).

The researchers used a Columbia University database of multibeam sonar soundings west of Ecuador and Colombia to identify a diffuse plate boundary that runs from the Panama transform fault (PTF) eastward to where the boundary intersects a deep oceanic trench just offshore of the South American coast, north of the Galapagos Islands.

Gallery

  • Former plate boundaries in the Pacific, offshore western South America Former plate boundaries in the Pacific, offshore western South America
  • Seismic activity map of Colombia Seismic activity map of Colombia
  • Map of Malpelo Island, namesake of the plate Map of Malpelo Island, namesake of the plate
  • Malpelo Island, the only emerged section of the plate Malpelo Island, the only emerged section of the plate

References

  1. Herrera Cala, 2013, p.69
  2. ^ Zhang et al., 2017
  3. Meschede & Barckhausen, 2000, p.4

Bibliography

Further reading

External links

Tectonic plates
Major plates World map indicating tectonic plate boundaries
Minor plates
Microplates
Ancient plates
Oceanic ridges
Ancient oceanic ridges
Tectonic plates of Central America (Pacific plate–North American plate–Caribbean plate c
onvergence zone)
Large
Small
Faults and
rift zones
Trenches and
troughs
Other
Tectonism in Colombia
Tectonic plates
Terranes
Terrane-bounding
fault systems
Intraterrane
faults
Chibcha
Tahamí
Caribe
La Guajira
Other terranes
Major
earthquakes
Orogenies
Other topics
Sources     Paris, Gabriel; Machette, Michael N.; Dart, Richard L.; Haller, Kathleen M. (2000). Map and Database of Quaternary Faults and Folds in Colombia and its Offshore Regions (PDF). USGS. pp. 1–66. Retrieved 2017-06-20.

      Gómez Tapias, Jorge; Montes Ramírez, Nohora E.; Almanza Meléndez, María F.; Alcárcel Gutiérrez, Fernando A.; Madrid Montoya, César A.; Diederix, Hans (2015). Geological Map of Colombia. Servicio Geológico Colombiano. pp. 1–212. Retrieved 2019-10-29.

      Various authors (2014). Enciclopedia de desastres naturales históricos de Colombia (PDF). Universidad del Quindío. pp. 1–21. Retrieved 2017-06-20.
Category • Images
Categories:
Malpelo plate Add topic